JILL TALBOT
(nee Whitehorn)
1954 -
By Judy Ferguson
Jill was born Jillian Kay Whitehorn on 20th January 1954 to Jean Margaret (nee Ahier) and Ronald Walter Whitehorn at the then Semaphore Community Hospital. Her parents were married at the Methodist Church, Semaphore in 1944.
Jill is the younger of two. Her sister, Brenda is 7 years older.
The family was living at Fletcher Road, Birkenhead at the time Jill was born.
Jill’s father was a flour miller and worked for Thomas and Son in Leadenhall St., Port Adelaide. He was a stout unionist and activist.
Her father served in World War 2 in New Guinea while her mum worked in munitions in what was later to become the Phillips Factory at Hendon.
Jill attended pre- school in the local church hall while they were still living at Fletcher Road, where Grandma Whitehorn had a Betting Shop run by Grandpa and two of their sons. Then, when they had to move to the race course to run the books, the building was converted into two flats for the sons and their families.
After about 12 – 14 years when the sons had built their own homes, the property was sold.The Catholic parish bought it and altered the inside to enable them to conduct church services there.
She remembers climbing trees in the backyard and how free her early years were. They had a pet sheep that they kept in the backyard. The family had no car for many years and went everywhere on bicycles. This engendered a love of cycling that endures even after some perilous cycling adventures.
Jill remembers riding on the back of her mother’s bike to kindy and her dad’s to Port Adelaide to buy fresh fish at the Troubridge Wharf fish market. When they got home they would put the fish in water in their laundry trough and Jill remembers as a tiny child being tempted to poke their eyes.
They sometimes borrowed her grandmother’s car for holidays – all the family did – and she came on holiday too!
She also remembers that her dad took a kitbag to work and that one day he brought a live sheep home on his bike, in a wooden crate slung across his handlebars! It was kept as a pet. They called her Felicity and when the family moved Felicity walked with them, led on a rope, to their new home further down the street. This was in 1961 when Jill was 7.
Her first school was Largs Bay Primary school – a big old 2 storey building and she was scared of falling down the stairs. She remembers with amusement a teacher called Mr D who was particularly nasty, standing in front of a school assembly with a wet stain on the front of his trousers and giving the children a great deal of amusement!
Jill remembers school milk often getting ‘hot’ and unpalatable and now only drinks it in cappuccinos!
At home Jill was adept at throwing goals into her netball goal ring so some of her friends at school suggested she join the school team but she discovered she knew very little of the game or its rules at all and at about 10 or 11 years of age this proved an embarrassing experience.
Jill also remembers folk dancing at school and the physical as well as emotional discomfort of the mobility of her burgeoning female figure at that time. Her year 7 teacher, Mrs Adams, she particularly remembers as a weaver of amazing ‘moral tales’ with dire consequences - like the boy who walked along the top of corrugated iron fences until one day he slipped!
Her father was one of 13 children and her mother one of 4. She particularly remembers Uncle Herbert who was a sailor. Many of Jill’s extended family lived nearby and their children went to Largs Bay School. One aunt and uncle- her mother’s sister and dad’s brother - lived next door. She also had a dear aunt Madge who lived nearby and who shared Jill’s love of cooking and reading right up until her death.
Jill attended the Port Adelaide Girls Technical High School where she studied German with Frau Jozephs and also did commercial subjects. She had a good English teacher who she acknowledges is responsible for her letter writing skills which she later put to good use when she went overseas. At 15 she left after Year 11.
She got her first job through someone at the church where she taught Sunday School. It was at the Philips factory in the typing pool – the same factory where her mother had worked in munitions during the war.
She was there for 2 years before transferring to a land broker’s where she worked for 7 years, firstly in Currie St., then North Terrace, College Park.
It was also at 15 that Jill began her keen interest in the sport of rowing. This had begun at high school when she and other girls would row with the Port Adelaide Rowing Club at Snowden’s Beach on the Port River opposite the wheat silos.
Here she experienced for the first time what was to become continual sexual harassment and bullying by the male rowers who wanted the women out of the club.
The club was very hierarchical and women were right at the bottom.
The girls’ courageous struggle to be recognised as full club members made the front page of The Sunday Mail newspaper.
They were expected to practice very early in the morning so that they would be out of the way for the men to practice at a reasonable hour! Jill remembers being politically naïve when she thinks now of the fraught relations that existed between the men’s and women’s teams. They were very challenging times trying to get recognition for women rowers who had been involved in the sport since the early 1900’s.
Women rowers were invited to the South Australian Sports Star of the Year Awards but were still subject to harassment by their male counterparts.
The girls eventually moved to the Railways Rowing Club (now the site of the Festival Theatre) then to the Adelaide Rowing Club who took them in.
Jill was keen to do well at rowing and she believes it saved her teenage years. She represented the state in women’s rowing in fours and single sculls for 12 years.
In the 1970’s she was involved with the SA Women’s Rowing Association who approached secondary schools to get girls rowing teams organized and set up the first girls’ rowing teams to compete in regattas and now Head of the River and in the Henley on Torrens Regatta for which they had to borrow boats for them to use.
It was while rowing that she met school teacher Philip Mangelsdorf who she married when she was 18 at Kings College at Kensington.
They went to live at Ovingham but the marriage didn’t last and their separation was not acrimonious. Jill believes she was just too young. They remain friends and Philip has an excellent wine cellar!
She went to live with a friend from work who had 5 young children and a Great Dane!! She lasted there for about 9 months and then went to Sydney where she began working on a voluntary basis for the national rowing body. During this time she was part of the selection panel for the selection of the new Australian Rowing Coach.
She first lived at Bass Hill then Annandale, Balmain and Mosman where she mainly lived in shared houses. Very interesting times!
She worked as a secretary temping at banks, shipping offices and PR firms. She says it was a good way to get to know Sydney’s transport system and geography and it gave her self confidence. She ended up at a legal firm – Moore and Bevin’s who were very flexible about her rowing commitments.
In 1983 Jill went overseas to London where she worked for short periods in various jobs like law firms, washing dishes in cafes etc, in order to fund organized trips or with friends into Europe, including to Portugal, Spain, Egypt, Israel and Morocco.
Jill had first met her future husband Norm when she has been rowing in Adelaide. He was a very successful sculler winning the President’s Cup in the 1970/71 championships. He was very well known in the small rowing community.
When Jill came back to Adelaide in 1984 she house- sat for former husband Philip who was then on a year’s teaching exchange to the UK. She went back to temping for legal firms then got a job at a PR firm but didn’t stay long.
Norm Talbot had begun to take an interest in her and they began going out together.
They were married on 10th February 1985 in the garden of their house on Adelaide Road, Evanston Park. Norm had bought the house and, being a builder, had begun doing it up.
They did this together with a view to selling it but they fell in love with it and decided to stay in Gawler.
Their first child, Rebecca was born there in late 1985 and they realized it was a very busy road where there were many accidents so they decided, having a young child and pets, it was too dangerous, so they moved.
They bought a 10 acre property at Bibaringa with an existing old house on it which they have since extended considerably.
They had Nicholas in 1987 and Rachel in October 1989. Sadly, Jill’s mum died in 1990 when Rachel was only 9 months old. Her dad died in 2005.
Jill became active in the community when her children were very little – through the Nursing Mothers support group, playgroup, kindergym, and Friends of CAFHS (Child and Family Health Service).
All the children went to Gawler East Pre – School where Norm helped to build an extension and Jill was President of the parent body for several years. The children then went to Trinity College and while there attended, occasionally, an after school program at Roseworthy (respite care for Jill as Norm was often away with work for extended periods of time) because its educational program was of such high quality.
During this time Jill did the paper work for her and Norm’s building/construction business.
Her first paid job was with Gawler Council compiling their first Community Information Directory.
She then did community work contracts for the International Year of Volunteers in 2001, the Mayors’ Community Leadership Courses run by the Salisbury and Playford Councils in 2005, Volunteer Coordinator for CYFS in Gawler (Child, Youth and Family services) for 5 years from 2001 – 2006 and now (2009/2010 - ) Coordinator of the Gawler Community House.
Jill remains involved with a great many projects and community groups in Gawler. She is the Chair of the Gawler Volunteers Advisory Committee (a subcommittee of Council), member of Zonta and the Gawler Significant Women’s Project. In 1989 Jill was deservedly selected as Gawler’s Australia Day “Citizen of the Year”
Jill enjoys relationships with her sister’s two sons and two daughters and is a proud great aunt. She has two dogs – Daisy and Bella and loves the rural environment. She is passionate about the environment and sustainability.
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